


Promise

by xRinsexRepeatx



Series: Mini McSheps [3]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode: s01e01 Rising, Introspection, M/M, Microfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-13 05:49:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16886808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xRinsexRepeatx/pseuds/xRinsexRepeatx
Summary: The first time they met.





	Promise

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [McSheplets](https://mcsheplets.livejournal.com/) challenge #295: Promise.

* * *

John had risen to special ops pilot as surely as the sun. Top of his class. He’d always heard he showed a lot of potential.

Didn’t get much further before he ended up a glorified soccer mom ferrying frozen scientists and pre-packed meals back and forth from frozen tundra to frozen tundra.

It was supposed to be a punishment, the clear sky and the bare ground, nothing above him and nothing below, just him and the biting wind.

* * *

Rodney had always been fighting. Since he three years old and the other children laughed at him when he said he could _so_ read, shut _up_ , and every step had just brought more and more reasons for fighting. He’d show them, those were his fighting words, he’d show them all. He got far, was so close to leaving orbit he could taste it when _he_ was the one shown wrong, was pushed back down into exile where no one would see.

Then, the outpost. Ancient technology, a control chair that was dead to anybody but the doctor, who could barely make it glow. It was so close, a breakthrough on the way to recognition, and again he was kept from it. He’d keep on fighting.

* * *

John had sat down in the chair.

He knew his stomach should sink at the jolt of it lowering but it felt more like being welcomed.

“Think about where we are in the solar system,” someone said, and from the moment the chair reached out to him in turn, he was sure that following that voice would take him brand new places.

* * *

The pilot had sat down in the chair.

Carson came running, and Rodney had expected maybe a broken panel, but the chair had fallen back, glowing brighter than ever, and Rodney rushed to its side.

“Major, think about where we are in the solar system,” he urged, and from the moment the chair painted the air above it in stellar colors, he was sure this pilot would help him open brand new doors.

* * *

It felt like a promise.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> this time I totally managed to keep within mcsheplets constraint of <500 words, huzzah!
> 
> If I've given you the impression there's any chance you'll like my writing you should read my [John DADT repeal angst](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14832281).
> 
> I _will_ write an explicit mcshep fic some day. I _will_.
> 
> comments and kudos are love <3


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